Investigating the relationship between social capital, knowledge sharing and organizational performance among employees of Iranian insurance companies in Gilan province

Dissertation for Master's Degree

Abstract:

One of the most important issues in Iran's insurance companies has always been to improve and improve performance and increase productivity in employees and organizations. One of the ways to increase the productivity and effectiveness of Iranian insurance companies in this situation is to produce, share and transfer knowledge among employees. The development and expansion of knowledge in the organization requires that we pay special attention to social capital. For this purpose, this research examines social capital and knowledge management and organizational performance in Saipa automotive industry. The statistical population of this research is 500 employees of Iranian insurance companies in Gilan province. To calculate the statistical sample size, Cochran's formula was used and the number of samples was determined to be 217 people. A simple random sampling method was used. The field data collection method and the data collection tool was the standard questionnaire taken from the research of Taigo (2013). This research is descriptive in terms of its purpose. In this research, descriptive statistics and histogram will be used using spss20 software for the statistical description and frequency of demographic variables and research variables. In this research, in order to present the operating model and check the research model, the structural equation method was used, and the factor analysis method with lisrel 8.8 software was used for the validity of the questionnaire, and then the path coefficients and their significance will be checked and analyzed. The research results showed that structural, relational and structural social capital has a positive and significant effect on knowledge sharing.  Also, structural, relational and structural social capital has a positive and significant effect on knowledge transfer, and knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer also have a positive and significant effect on organizational performance.

Keywords: Structural, relational and structural social capital, knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer, organizational performance

Introduction:

Improving and improving performance and increasing productivity in employees and organizations has always been one of the most important issues in Iranian insurance companies. In the current situation of the country and internal and external economic pressures, various goods and services have been accompanied by high price fluctuations. One of the ways to solve this problem and increase the productivity and effectiveness of Iranian insurance companies in this situation is to produce, share and transfer knowledge among employees. In other words, the performance of Iranian insurance companies can be improved by improving the level of knowledge and sharing it at different levels of the organization, as well as the correct management of knowledge about insurance problems.  On the other hand, sharing and transferring knowledge among employees is one of the issues that is related to the level of communication and cooperation and sociability of people so that they can transfer and expand existing knowledge in the organization. Therefore, the development and spread of knowledge in the organization requires that we pay special attention to social capital. For this purpose, this research examines social capital and knowledge management and organizational performance in Iranian insurance companies. Therefore, organizational performance is a general structure that refers to how organizational operations are performed. Organizational performance is defined as the degree to which organizations achieve business goals and experts. Performance refers to how tasks, activities and results are performed. Performance can be considered as the measurable results of the organization's decisions and actions, which indicate the degree of success and achievements (Alam Tabrizi et al., 2018). In his definition of performance measurement, Mullin emphasizes how to manage and create value as follows: "Evaluating how organizations manage and create value for customers and other stakeholders". Social trust, social participation, relationships and social bonds as components of social capital have beneficial effects on growth and development. (Kasani and Kasani[3], 2011). Social capital will improve people's participation with each other (Xby [4], 2010). Social capital is considered an important part of management discussions in organizations, successful managers are considered to be able to achieve more social capital production and development in relation to society.Considering the importance of social capital for organizations, it is necessary to determine the factors that can be related to the increase in the amount of this capital (Bodio [5], 2010). Research shows that higher social capital and social cohesion help to improve the conditions of society and organization (Kim and Kawachi [6], 2010). Social capital is considered as a resource that may be used by individuals, groups and societies to achieve desired results, and it is a concept that is used in many cases by social analysts to describe a wide range of social processes and to understand the question of why some people, groups and classes of people have political, economic or other results. achieve a more positive social status than others (Noughani[7], 2010).  In the absence of social capital, other capitals lose their effectiveness and without social capital, it becomes uneven and difficult to follow the paths of cultural and economic development and evolution (Matijesi [8], 2010). Managers and those who can create social capital in the organization pave the way for their career and organizational success. Improving the mechanism of social capital will improve the organizational performance and improve the productivity of the organization (Tago[9], 2013).

Knowledge sharing[10] is a set of behaviors that include exchanging knowledge and information and helping others in this regard (Yousefi et al., 2019). The ultimate goal of employee knowledge sharing is to try to transfer and transform the experiences and knowledge of all people into organizational assets and resources, in order to increase and promote organizational effectiveness. Salopek [11] is of the opinion that if we want people in the organization to share what they learn, conditions must be created in the organization in which the sharing of conditions is the result of individual advantage (Salopek, 2010).

Regarding the relationship between research structures, it can be said that the transfer of information and knowledge at the macro and micro level between individuals and organizations depends on the people who facilitate and accelerate this transfer. As a result, all the factors that encourage or hinder interpersonal communication will also affect people's information exchange. For this reason, the importance of communication and interactions based on trust between people in the expansion and application of knowledge has been emphasized. If an organization can increase effective interactions among its employees within organizational groups and units, it can ensure the effectiveness of information exchanges among its people and, as a result, the effective management of organizational knowledge (Bhatt, 2001). Therefore, creating and expanding a culture and atmosphere in the organization that encourages this type of communication and interactions is one of the necessities of knowledge management. Based on this, the researchers decided to test and explain the relationship between social capital and various aspects, processes and activities of knowledge management in the organization. Therefore, the management of organizations should rely on superior knowledge, make more reasonable decisions on important issues and improve knowledge-based functions. One of the strategic steps of the knowledge management process is knowledge sharing. In fact, organizations should specifically control and manage the appropriate type of knowledge related to their processes and consider knowledge as an important source for creating and maintaining competitive advantage in the organization, and in particular, pay attention to sharing the resulting knowledge to improve the performance of government organization processes in a competitive environment (King[12], 2005). The role of knowledge sharing in the knowledge management of government organizations is so important that some authors state that the existence of "knowledge management is to support knowledge sharing". One of the reasons for the importance of knowledge sharing is that knowledge sharing improves performance and provides services to customers and reduces costs, the time of developing new services and products, and the time of delay in the delivery of services and goods to customers and finally reducing the costs of accessing valuable types of knowledge within the organization (King, 2005) Therefore, it can be said that knowledge management and knowledge sharing and social capital and relationships between people are concepts that are closely related to the productivity, effectiveness and performance of employees and organizations. Therefore, according to the mentioned issues, the question is raised whether there is a meaningful relationship between social capital and knowledge sharing and organizational performance? The category of knowledge has grown more and more in recent decades, which is due to the focus on knowledge as one of the organization's strategic resources.